Urban myths about US passport ownership

[WouldBe]

Do you have any idea what the regulations are for UK military personnel?

If you are based abroad you have to have a passport as you usually make your own way there or back on leave.

 

[phildwyer]

Phil,

I'm not sure what the law is right now. Certainly the number of countries you can travel to from the US without a passport is decreasing or will decrease, and even the expectation that it will decrease in the future would be likely to increase adoption of passports.

I still can't see them requiring a passport for Mexico or Canada (or Puerto Rico, obviously). No-one really stands to gain from such an arrangement, and Mexico in particular would lose billions. I've entered the USA overland from Mexico about ten times in the last year with just a driver's licence, and a couple of times I didn't even have to show that.

 

[zion]

WouldBe,

Thanks for the information. This would suggest that the effect of military service on rates of passport ownership would be quantitatively about the same for the US and the UK (assuming equivalent rates of military service), though proportionally the effect would be bigger in the US because the base rate of passport ownership in the US is smaller.

 

[nino_savatte]

Hi Nino,

I stand corrected. This would certainly mean that US decisions to embark on foreign military adventures help to increase passport ownership. Do you have any idea what the regulations are for UK military personnel?

.

I couldn't tell you. my dad was in the USAF. My uncle, however, was with REME in the British Army.

 

[Epicurus]

Isn’t the figure of 7% citizens that don’t get their passport via the military and that were born in the USA.

I’m sure this came up on a different board I use and if you take away the number of US passport holders born outside the USA (and therefore get their passports via an Embassy and those who get theirs via the military you end up with about 7% of Americans apply for they own passport in the USA.

 

[zion]

Phil,

I think you're right about Mexico and Canada.

That's why it was interesting that the Expedia article people linked to earlier suggested that 36% of Americans have visited "more than two" foreign countries. This is almost the same as the 37% figure for passport ownership. Assuming that the two countries would generally be Canada and Mexico, that would give the following distribution in the US adult population:

36-37% have visited more than two countries and hold a passport
38% have visited one foreign country and do not hold a passport, and have therefore restricted their foreign tourism to a country that did not require a US passport in the circumstances under which they were travelling
25% have never visited any other country

 

[zion]

sorry, the 38% would of course have visited "one or two" countries, not necessarily just one.

 

[phildwyer]

Phil,

I think you're right about Mexico and Canada.

That's why it was interesting that the Expedia article people linked to earlier suggested that 36% of Americans have visited "more than two" foreign countries. This is almost the same as the 37% figure for passport ownership. Assuming that the two countries would generally be Canada and Mexico, that would give the following distribution in the US adult population:

36-37% have visited more than two countries and hold a passport
38% have visited one foreign country and do not hold a passport, and have therefore restricted their foreign tourism to a country that did not require a US passport in the circumstances under which they were travelling
25% have never visited any other country

Sounds about right, and I bet that's comparable to the UK. Of course, lots of Amricans go on cruises for their holidays, where they visit five or six countries for about two hours each. They don't need passports for that either.

 

[zion]

Epicurus,

I can't find any actual data to say what proportion of current passport holders are Americans born outside the US or in the UK military. However, you would only exclude Americans born outside the US when considering this question if you felt that non-US-born Americans did not qualify as Americans. Surely the best measure to use is all adult American citizens, irrespective of where they are born?

Similarly, stripping out people living on America's more liberal and cosmopolitan coasts, as some posters have indicated, suggests that non-coastal Americans are somehow more representative of America than coastal Americans. I don't see why that should be. I wouldn't argue that someone living in rural Yorkshire was more truly British than someone living in Liverpool.

 

[zion]

What I'm seeing suggests that about half of the Americans who go on international cruises have passports.

 

[marksl]

Question about this using the UK as an example. If brits travel to europe there is the mess of european passports dont the americans have the same problem with their neighbouring nations.

 

[kyser_soze]

Similarly, stripping out people living on America's more liberal and cosmopolitan coasts, as some posters have indicated, suggests that non-coastal Americans are somehow more representative of America than coastal Americans. I don't see why that should be. I wouldn't argue that someone living in rural Yorkshire was more truly British than someone living in Liverpool.

I was merely making the point that passport ownership is concentrated in specific areas not that heartland or coastal persons are any more or less indicative of the US - I was making the point that when it's parochial, the US is exceptionally parochial, with little knowledge of the world outside the US.

 

[phildwyer]

when it's parochial, the US is exceptionally parochial

And when its cosmpolitan, it is exceptionally cosmopolitan.

 

[Epicurus]

Epicurus,

I can't find any actual data to say what proportion of current passport holders are Americans born outside the US or in the UK military. However, you would only exclude Americans born outside the US when considering this question if you felt that non-US-born Americans did not qualify as Americans. Surely the best measure to use is all adult American citizens, irrespective of where they were boen

What I'm trying to explain is that the figure of 7% I think refers to people living in the USA that apply for their passport independently, directly themselves.

Children born outside the USA that are entitled to hold a US passport would get it from an Embassy and it would in most cases not be them applying but their parents, also that the majority of US passport holders get their passport via the military.(if you includ the whole family)

As I said in my original post I recall this coming up on another board I use (Portuguese language) and it was some American guy telling us about it, I have no idea if it is true or accurate but I was just trying to explaining how that figure could have come about.

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

I went to the State Department website, totaled the number of passports issued over the last ten years, and then divided that by the total 18-and-over population of the US, and got 37%. Perhaps the difference is that it is 25% of the total population including children? But I think that the fairer measure is surely the adult population?

Does America issue passports to children? If they do then your calculation will be distorted and will be too high, because you're comparing passports in total against part of the population. Even allowing for that your method isn't going to be the most accurate. How many people die over ten years?

 

[poster342002]

I still can't see them requiring a passport for Mexico or Canada (or Puerto Rico, obviously). No-one really stands to gain from such an arrangement, and Mexico in particular would lose billions. I've entered the USA overland from Mexico about ten times in the last year with just a driver's licence, and a couple of times I didn't even have to show that.

Given how twitchy the US is about illegal immigration from Mexico, I do find that rather strange.

 

[trashpony]

Given how twitchy the US is about illegal immigration from Mexico, I do find that rather strange.

It's because phil doesn't look remotely Mexican. If you are swarthy of complexion they're a lot more thorough

 

[phildwyer]

It's because phil doesn't look remotely Mexican. If you are swarthy of complexion they're a lot more thorough

That's true. Tijuana/San Ysidro is the busiest land border in the world, and direly under-staffed, so they just wave through anyone white.

 

[poster342002]

I see.

 

[London_Calling]

I really enjoy this snotty, superior ‘oh those pathetic Americans’ stuff from primarily English people.

If Cornwall extended as far as Florida or California, or New Mexico or the Gulf coast in general then English people wouldn’t need passports for their two weeks in Benidorm, with fish and chips for breakfast, lager for lunch and a curry for dinner –while bedecked in their fav union jack shorts, the percentage of us with passports would be no better – why would it ?

Was that a tired cliché – have you been there ?

Or maybe the mental trip to Ibiza, or chillin’ on the beach in Goa, man. Or how about the stag weekend in Amsterdam or Dublin.

Or the fact that a passport in the UK often serves like an ID card in the USA?


Oh I see, the inference is that English people have passports so they can explore Europe’s finest museums, or perhaps travel the world in order to finish their education as fully rounded citizens ? Whatever it is, you can feel sure the reasons will be high-minded and metropolitan.


The irony, of course, is that those who read something into the higher passport ownership are more ignorant and blinded (by their own pomposity) than those they seek to mock for being parochial. Plus they’re cunts, of course.



- sorry, it's been a trying day.

 

[Epicurus]

I really enjoy this snotty, superior ‘oh those pathetic Americans’ stuff from primarily English people.

I didn’t read the thread like that at all, I would have thought that most Americans don’t have a passport because they can get a holiday in the USA from a beach holiday to a skiing holiday and because of the size of the place they don’t need to travel abroad because they can have as much difference as they like and not worry about the language difficulties from travelling abroad.

I have to say that almost all the Americans I have met around the world seem to have got their passports via the military or because of a job offer abroad.

 

[phildwyer]

Americans also get very little time off work compared to Europeans.

 

[London_Calling]

I didn’t read the thread like that at all

I did. I took it from the opening post. This part in particular:

While I was there, two different people told me that Americans have no interest in or knowledge of the world outside the US, and they both cited figures on passport ownership.

 

[zion]

If brits travel to europe there is the mess of european passports dont the americans have the same problem with their neighbouring nations.

No. For visits of under 30 days in length, it is legal for US citizens to visit Canada, Mexico, the Bahamas and a number of other Caribbean nations, using only their driver's license.

Kyser,

I was merely making the point that passport ownership is concentrated in specific areas

I would make the same presumption, but I haven't seen any data on rates of passport ownership by state.

When it's parochial, the US is exceptionally parochial, with little knowledge of the world outside the US.

I think that's a hard comparison to sustain. You can find people who are ignorant and ill-informed in every country. Quiz even British subjects on their knowledge of, say, history or geography, and you'll find that there are a whole lot of people who really don't know that much about either. You can select, say, rural Appalachia or Mississippi and find a group of people who hold pretty atavistic views (as I understand the film Borat makes clear). But is it really possible to say that our atavists are more parochial than your atavists?

Epicurus,

the figure of 7% I think refers to people living in the USA that apply for their passport independently, directly themselves.

That would imply that 30% of the population apply via their embassies or have their employer (such as the US military) apply for them. I don't buy it.

Remember that even if 11% (or even 18%) of American citizens were born outside the US, that doesn't mean that they live outside the US. As far as I know, only about a million Americans, or one in 300, live as expatriates. That suggests that very few US citizens applying for passports do so through an embassy.

Does America issue passports to children?

It does. The State Department figures don't break out who is an adult and who is not. The problem of people dying over ten years, and also the problem that some passports are issued only for a five-year period, would all tend to undermine the 37% figure, so I expect that the 37% figure is a little high. Does anyone have the comparable figures for the UK? The UK Passports Agency doesn't seem to have anything.

 

[dylanredefined]

If your in the uk forces you need a passport for foreign travel.Bizarelly had mine checked by a british soldier when I left germany for iraq and then checked again by another british soldier when I got to iraq , I dont know why ?
America is huge if you live in the middle of it its going to cost a lot to get anyway that needs a passport.

 

[zoltan]

Americans also get very little time off work compared to Europeans.

Yup. ( mugs !)

 

[phildwyer]

Yup. ( mugs !)

Its not their fault the union movement was annihilated in the 1930's.